It's just a little pin prick

I had an appointment at the travel clinic today. It's six months until my leave starts, and the vaccine for Hepatitis A and B is a six month deal. One now, one in a month, and another at the six month mark. It's worth talking to a doctor who specializes in travel medicine. I had no idea that some countries will require proof of yellow fever vaccination within a year of the last outbreak. And Iguazu Falls in northern Argentina had an outbreak this year. If we get down there we'd have to see it and Peru won't allow you in without proof of vaccination. It's also good to learn that Buenos Aires has good doctors.

If you can guess the secret word...

I went to Word on the Street yesterday. It's a publishing and book festival held in a number of cities across the country. I've been to the ones in Calgary and Vancouver, but this has been the largest. It was inspiring to see the number publishers and magazines there are to be published in. It was also a little depressing to see all the unknown authors - some of them at the stalls, some waiting at the booth to sign their books - and no one around. The stalls for retail places were the most popular. People swarming around on the chance of getting a deal on a book. But looking at the small press books and realizing how much competition there is making me rethink some things.

Never that simple

Fuck me. It turns out she's still selling this place after all. But she's going to make it a condition of sale that I'm here until April and she'll pay the rent. It can not go on like this. It just can't.

One thing settled... maybe

Bitter got texted today that our house swapper sold her other place, so I don't have to move. There were no extra details, but presumably she's no longer selling this place. One might think that would be enough news for one day, except...

She quit her job. She's also going back to Russia for a wedding at the end of the month, so will be looking for work when she gets back to Vancouver. I can only hope she can pay her bills.

My new toy... er... tool

I'm typing this entry on my new Acer Aspire One. It's a new computer in a class that they call a netbook. Which is just fancy talk for an ultra-small laptop. This one has a screen size just under 9" and is very light. I got the Linux version which also has a sold state hard drive - so no moving parts. The downside is that the HDD is only 8GB and half of that is taken up with software. I don't intend to use this as my main computer, so that should be fine. I spent a good part of the afternoon sitting on the patio at a new restaurant a couple of minutes away writing, which is what I wanted. It's small enough to fit in the little backpack I have and a couple of hours of battery life. I would have published this post from the patio, but they didn't have free WiFi, so I'm doing it from home while it recharges. It seems to recharge quickly and boots in under 30 seconds too.

Things I miss about Vancouver part 1

I've been here long enough and written enough good things about Toronto that I can mention some things I miss without sounding whiny and homesick. Other than Bitter, of course, who I miss a lot, I miss:

• my friends
  
• my condo
• my BBQ - man, I've grown to rely on that thing
  
• walking around the West End
• the mountains - good lord, where are the fucking mountains?
• the ocean
• cooking - cooking requires the proper tools and should be done with music, wine and a companion

Instability becomes stable after long enough

Apparently it's been a while since my last post. The housing situation is still up in the air. This place is still for sale. The price dropped, so since Saturday there have been a bunch of people through here. Eventually someone will make a deal on it. I investigated the possibility of another house swap, but that person was just as flaky as what we've got. Craigslist is fine for selling your old end tables, but don't use it for anything important. Bitter is still in Vancouver, bouncing from place to place. She seems to be doing alright, but not having a home base is hard after a while.

Getting out of the house

There was a showing at my apartment today for some prospective buyers. What I didn't do was leave roach motels out in obvious places with fake roaches inside. What I did do was take my laptop over to the Elephant & Castle to do some writing. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they have a new fall menu featuring food and drink pairings with Unibroue, one of my favourite breweries. Not a bad way to spend the time - writing, eating and drinking La Fin du Monde and Maudite. The other good thing is that it's across the street from the apartment, so I think a return trip will be in order. Perhaps more than one. Next time, however, I will make sure the laptop is fully charg-

Labour Day long weekend

Labour Day was beautiful, sunny and hot in Toronto. Saturday night I went to M&G's place to help break in the new barbeque. Sunday, a little worse for wear, I intended to go with someone from work over to Toronto Island. Being such a gorgeous weekend, everyone else wanted to go too. The line for the ferry was enormous. I'm sure anyone from Toronto would have told us that, but how were we supposed to know? Instead, we walked along the waterfront and eventually found a guy selling tickets for a boat tour. My co-worker bargained him down from an unreasonable $12 to a much better $10 for a 45-minute trip across the harbour to the island and back. Toronto Island looks like a pretty nice place. There are quite a number of houses out there, but much of it is like a huge park. According to the guide, a busy day in the summer can see upward of 100,000 to 150,000 people. That's a lot of ferries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The last two weeks have been crazy, busy and stressful. To catch up with things:

• Bitter is back in Vancouver at her previous company on what will probably be a 4-month contract
• our house swapper is selling the condo we're (I'm) currently in
• we went to Montreal for 5 days

There's probably more that I've forgotten. La belle ville was great; hot, sunny and gorgeous. We love Montreal and we spent time walking the streets, sitting on patios and drinking beer. We stayed for a couple of days with Bitter's friend and her husband (whose wedding was the reason we got to Montreal the last time). We also stayed in a lovely B&B or Gîte du passant for a couple of days.

The person we swapped condos with has two condos in Toronto. She needs the money and tried to sell the other one, but couldn't sell it for enough to keep from losing on the deal. She wants now to sell this one and have us move to the other one. It's farther from work and has no view, although the kitchen is nicer. It would be more inconvenient, but the only other real option seems to be to call it all off and go home.

Bitter is back at the company she left on a contract. It's a different position and she'll be managing a conversion project they need to do by the start of the next year. It's a good opportunity and it allows her to be back in Vancouver for a while - which she misses a lot. She's already gone to several of our favourite restaurants.

Walking the streets

Some further adventures on the streets of Toronto. Last weekend we checked out Cabbagetown in the rain. It's a very cute area east of where we live. There's a strip of shops and restaurants along Parliament, some gorgeous houses, a couple of nice parks and a graveyard. We spent most of the time following the suggested scenic route through the neighbourhood, but did stop for brunch. There was supposed to be a good food/kitchen store, but for some reason we couldn't find it.

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and the Distillery District. Cabbagetown was very low key and neighbourhoody; the Distillery District was touristy and much like Granville Island. The old distillery buildings have been repurposed as shops, artisan studios, galleries and restaurants. The streets are all brick and there are no cars. It's a bit more expensive, but has some very cool art, and jewelry. Bitter got herself some new earrings, but reluctantly left the $220 ones behind. The rest of the day was spent on patios with beer. As it should be.

Toronto retards

We met up with some friends from the old county last week - good old Spruce Grove, Alberta. I also went to my first Blue Jays game since we moved here. I'm not really a baseball fan - the number of games I've seen since my dad used to fall asleep in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons (when golf wasn't on) is quite small. But it was a good time, and the Jays won, which apparently doesn't happen more than half the time.

Bitter was unable to go to join the girls for "We Will Rock You" the night before (while we guys were doing the guy thing by going to the game), but we met up with Archie, Veronica and Archie Jr. the next day. Bitter met them in the afternoon and I caught up with them after work. We were able to show our prowess at navigating in Toronto by leading them on a half-hour walk to end up exactly where we were when we started. We're so, so cool.

If Tim Burton had directed Moulin Rouge...

Saturday night we went down to the Rivoli on Queen West to see Amanda Palmer in concert. Probably the oddest concert we've been to, so far. A significant portion of the audience dressed up - sort of goth, sort of not. She is part of Dresden Dolls who we also hadn't heard of before. I read about her recently as she was involved in a project with Neil Gaiman for her upcoming album and then discovered she was playing here. So, having prepared ourselves by watching a few Youtube videos, we wandered down to check her out.

The opening band was Vermillion Lies which was like an Edward Gorey cartoon brought to life and set to music. Macabre, theatrical and very enjoyable. Two sisters (one of whom wore a coat and tails and had an inked-on moustache) who played a variety of instruments, many of which were regular household objects - toolbox, typewriter, washboard, kazoo, marionette, bells.

Amanda Palmer wasn't quite as bizarre as some of her videos would indicate (she pretty much stayed at her keyboard the whole night), but she is a very dynamic performer. Her style is best described as punk cabaret. She's got some good songs, and her encore was a version of Radiohead's Creep done on the ukulele as she wandered through the crowd.

Who rocks the most?

While out in the country on the long weekend we passed through Rockwood several times. That's an awesome name for a town. Rockwood! It also happens to be very cute.

The next town over is called Eremosa, so the area between them is called Rockmosa. That has to be the best town name ever! Rockmosa!! [makes rock 'n roll devil hand sign]

Country mouse, city mouse

So, the August long weekend was spent with Bitter's family. During the three days we saw cousins and grandams and uncles and nieces and nephews. A very full weekend. With the cousins we spent some quality time on Friday eating, drinking and hanging out.

Saturday and Sunday involved nieces and nephews: once at Grandma's, once at their own place. Four energetic children between 12 and 6 with nothing to do at Grandma's is not my ideal time, but we survived. The next night at their own place, where they could run and do what they liked, was much better. BBQ, firepit and jumping on the trampoline in the dark. Whee!

Monday saw us venturing to Wiarton - home of Wiarton Willie the groundhog. A six hour round trip and the little bastard didn't even make an appearance. To be fair, he wasn't the reason for the trip, which was beautiful and Wiarton is a nice little town at an inlet.

Guelph and Georgetown are also very beautiful.

Goin' to the country

Tomorrow I make my first excursion outside Toronto. Bitter is already out in Georgetown with her Grandma, and I will head out tomorrow after work on the Go Train. This will be the first time in close to eleven years that I've been out there. There's also the chance that we'll get to see some Alberta friends, who are currently living in Sudbury, but camping near Guelph for the next few days, while we're out there.

I don't really know if Georgetown/Guelph counts as the country or not. It probably depends on whether or not you live there. And no one out there is reading this anyway.

A night at the movies

I know I said that this blog was going to be about the experience of traveling and living in other places and not about the regular crap of life like what movies we see, but this is different. Maybe. Sort of. So, we went to a movie last night. The application I use in Facebook to track the copious amount of wine we drink was offering a chance to see an advance screening for a new movie called Bottle Shock. For free! About wine!! What's not to like?

The screening was at the Varsity Theatre on Bloor, which is quite nice and similar to Silver City theatres out West. We got in a little later than we intended (talked to a couple of people, stood in line, got referred to more people before finding the guy standing out front with the tickets - but that's what you get for going through some application on FB), so we ended up sitting in one of the front rows. The movie was alright. There were several elements that were familiar (father and son reconciliation, underdog vs. the establishment), but the scenery was good - the wine fields (some might call them vineyards) of northern California. If I won the lottery, I would totally buy a winery. Right now.

We left the theatre with a strong desire for some wine (they should have at least had some tastings), but ended up at a Korean BBQ place with a pint of Sapporo. Enh. What are you going to do?

It's a day in the beautiful neighbourhood

Today we ventured into The Annex. It's an upscale neighbourhood a little northwest of where we live. The shopping along Bloor is similar to Robson in Vancouver and the houses are very nice and very expensive. While some areas we've seen so far are mostly older-looking, brick row houses, these were mostly standalone (with some duplexes) and newer-looking. Margaret Atwood and other celebrities apparently live in the area.

We also found a cute little shopping area south of Bloor and Markham (not technically The Annex). We stopped in a few shops and had coffee on a patio.

On the way home we walked through the U of T, which has some amazing old buildings, and we sat in Queen's Park for a while. It was a gorgeous day after thundershowers yesterday.

It's Bryan Adams on the phone, it's Bryan Adams on the phone...

We went to The Cameron House for a concert last night, which is a sketchy little dive bar on Queen West. The stage was in a small back room. There were never more than 40 people in the place at one time. Richard Laviolette was the first up - an intense singer/guitarist that was folky and had a strong conviction about Native rights. Next was Tripping Hazard, a decent power trio, but they did get points for incorporating cello. The drummer was fantastic. Imagine a Linux-loving sys admin with anger management issues let loose on something he could hit.

The final act was Wax Mannequin. We'd heard about him from different, completely unconnected, Toronto people. He's a great performer and is apparently known for songs such as The Price and the one where he starts meowing in the middle. Very strange, but well worth the $10 cover.

Toronto restaurants part 6

Two restaurants with M&G:

Kalendar is in Little Italy at College and Euclid. It has a nice patio and the food was very good.

Epicure is at Queen St. W and Denison. We started on the upstairs patio, but moved inside when the rain began. The food was very good, but probably the slowest service I've seen yet - apparently this was unusually bad.

Baldwin Street is a two block neighbourhood close to where we live. In that two blocks are probably twenty or more restaurants. They sit side-by-side in converted homes in the middle of a residential area. We found it completely by accident when walking home from another restaurant.

Margaritas has good Mexican food, but only mediocre sangria. While we were there the restaurant lost power for half-an-hour while the hydro company replaced something where the power cable attaches to the building, so we got to watch them work while we ate.

Bocca is Italian and has decent, reasonably-priced food. The patio is good.